The comic artwork of Ryan Claytor.

Recently I had an opportunity to work with a phenomenally bright little girl. She’s not yet double-digits, but she’s creating bona fide comics on a weekly basis.

I invited her and her father up to Michigan State University a couple/few weeks back to show them around the campus and give her some lessons on making comics. She gifted me with the above “Thank you” comic this past weekend.

As you can see, we started the day with a tour of the Claytorian arcade (that’s her and her dad playing my beloved “Penny Pitch”). Then we toured the building where I teach and wound up in my office for some comic-ing. You can’t leave campus without visiting the MSU Dairy Store for an ice cream cone. …and finally I pulled some strings with Comics Bibliographer extraordinaire, Randy Scott, to give her and her dad a behind the scenes tour of the MSU Special Collections Libary, the largest public collection of comics in the world. She even used the fancy brush pen I gave her to illustrate the whole page.

This comic touched my heart and I really wanted to publicly thank this remarkable girl. This now holds a place of honor in my university office: